


rise

by epsiloneridani



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Descriptions of Violence/Death, Gen, blood cw, blood tw, but tagging for folks who would like to know ahead of time, nothing really worse than what's found in canon, violent imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 07:43:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17845262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsiloneridani/pseuds/epsiloneridani
Summary: Luxor’s burning. His brother’s gone.For Emile, the world has always been full of fire.





	rise

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: blood, violence, but nothing much worse than is found in canon.

To Emile, breathing is fire.

They shove and they sneer and the fury ticks in his chest, seething scarlet rage he’s supposed to keep inside. He fights it down when Corey Lee spills milk on his homework at lunch, grits his teeth and curls his hands into fists and doesn’t break his nose.

“You’re such a  _nerd_ , Emile.”

They say he’s supposed to  _breathe_ _, walk away, let it go,_  and he stuffs his ruined papers into his backpack and lets them leave without a scratch. They say he’s supposed to  _breathe, walk away, let it go_ , but Corey knocks him into a locker not ten minutes later, says  _get outta the way, ya Innie_ , and he sees his mom’s smile, his dad’s grin, sees them on the cold, hard earth with their skulls smashed in, and the red, red rage roars over.

To Emile, breathing is fire.

“You’ve gotta be the bigger person, Em,” his brother tells him later, winding white gauze around his bruised knuckles. “There’re always gonna be bullies.”

“They were jerks,” he mumbles, scuffing his shoe in the worn carpet. Marshall ruffles his hair and Emile swats at him and scowls.

“I know they are. But if you’re gonna fight, you have to do it right. You have to be better than they are.”

“They  _pushed me_. They called me names!”

Marshall rocks back on his heels, quiet for a long moment. When he speaks again, it’s soft and full of resolve.

“Emile, sometimes it takes more strength to  _not_  swing back.”

When Marshall’s beside him, he doesn’t burn.

He’s just dropped his backpack by the door and pulled a cookie out of the cupboard (he’s not supposed to have them before he eats an actual meal, Marshall’s going to be so mad) and his brother bursts through the door, a whirlwind of wild purpose. The cookie drops to the floor. “You remember our plan, Emi?” he bites out, tense and taut and terrifyingly focused on everything except dessert before dinner. Emile blinks at him, blinks at the cookie. The floor shudders; the walls shake.

Marshall crouches down beside him, planting his hands on his shoulders and seizing his gaze. “The  _plan_ , Em. For emergencies?”

Emergencies. Emergencies. Right. Right. Emile lifts his chin and nods. “Good,” Marshall says, though his voice is breathless, cracking. “Good. Go grab your bag.”

The sky is blazing and broken and he’s clinging to Marshall’s hand and pushing through the crowd. Someone screams and he bites his tongue and holds tighter, presses closer to his brother’s side. Someone screams and he slams down the shudder. The sky is full of fire. The sky is full of fear.

“I need you to be brave, Emi.” Marshall’s tight and clipped as he barrels past a barricade, yanking Emile along with him. “Can you do that?”

Emile snorts. “I’m  _seven_ ,” he grumbles, “I’m not a  _kid_.”

Marshall doesn’t laugh. “ _Emile_. Promise me.

He blows out a breath. “ _Fine_.”

“No matter what.”

“I  _promise_.”

There are landing pads all around Luxor; he sees them everyday on the walk to school, ships coming and going from all over the city, freighters and starfighters and big lumbering giants Marshall calls refugees carriers. There’s one docked on the pad in front of them, the people are flooding onto it, screaming, shoving, sobbing. His heart jumps and he pushes it down, pushes the fear away.  _Be brave_.

“Oh,  _hell_ —” Emile’s head snaps around; Marshall  _never_  swears. There, high above the spaceport – the sky bleeds broken crimson. Someone cries  _Banshees_  and then the demons dive down from on high, swooping and screeching. He can’t see, he can’t see, and it takes him a minute to realize it’s because Marshall’s curled around him like a shield.

Emile pushes at him impatiently. “I can do it,” he says, and Marshall’s grip tightens, tightens, and then releases all at once. His hold on Emile’s hand is unrelenting, brutal and unwavering and unyielding, and when they run into a crowd that won’t let them pass, when they hit a wall, Marshall hoists him up in his arms and forces his way through.

“Who the hell do you think you  _are_ —”

“What are you  _doing?_ ”

“What gives you any right—”

They’re the kinds of words that would stop most people in their tracks but they do nothing to Marshall, calm _, follow-the-rules-Marshall_ , and Emile doesn’t know if he’s proud of him for finally ignoring someone telling him what to do or worried because he’d usually  _never_.

_Sometimes, it takes more strength to not swing back_.

But Marshall  _is_  swinging, battling brutally through the masses. Emile manages a peek over his shoulder and he knows Marshall would tell him to look down, look away, but the capitol’s on fire, a raging inferno, and there are silhouettes in the sky that look so much like someone falling from way up high.

Marshall’s hand lands on the back of his head, presses his face to his shoulder so he can’t see anymore. “Don’t look,” he orders, and Emile’s heard that tension in his voice only once before, when Marshall found him kneeling beside their parents’ broken bodies in earth that rippled with so much red. “Emi,  _don’t look_.”

“I’m seven,” Emile says, like that means something right now, and Marshall clutches him and shoulders past a woman huddled over a body covered in blood. Emile’s chest turns, turns, aches, and he winds his hands into Marshall’s shirt and stares straight back and doesn’t let himself look away. Be brave. Be brave.

Be brave.

The refugee ship looms before them. People are throwing themselves at it, scaling the sides to try to get a ride, and guards beat them back and drag them down. “There’s no more space!” one growls, glaring at Marshall and Emile scowls and squirms. Marshall squeezes him tightly though, and he stops.  _Wait_.

“My brother—”

“ _Everyone’s_  brother wants on that ship,” the guard says. “Get back. There’ll be another transport. Wait your turn. Someone will come to get you.”

“Please,” Marshall says again and there’s no pleading, only resolve. “My brother needs to be on that ship.”

“Wait your  _tu_ —”

He’s halfway through his sentence when the spire behind the spaceport explodes, showering the crowd with shattered glass and stone. They scream and surge, scrambling for safety. The guards rise to meet them, barring their path with shields and stun batons. The one on the ramp scowls at Marshall and lifts his own weapon.

“There’s no more space,” he barks. “Get off the ramp. This ship is taking off.”

“Not without my brother on board.”

"He’ll have to wait for the next—”

Emile’s in Marshall’s arms and then he’s standing on the ramp on his own two feet and Marshall’s driving a brutal fist into the guard’s jaw. The man stumbles, staggers, and Marshall charges forward and knocks him off the ramp and into the crowd below. The other guards whip around and regroup, ready to rampage, and Emile’s frozen in place while Marshall swings at them too, knocking them back, knocking them down.

“Emile!”

It jolts him and he starts. He has to help. He has to help.

Be brave.

Be brave.

“ _Get on that ship!_ ” Marshall roars and Marshall never yells. Never. It sends a surge of terror through Emile’s chest and he scrambles the rest of the way up the ramp and onto the refugee ship before he has a second to think twice. It’s only when he’s onboard that he turns around because Marshall’s not beside him and Marshall’s always,  _always_  right next to him.

“Marshall!”

There are too many of them for Marshall to stop all by himself. They surround him and he raises his hands and backs slowly down the ramp. Emile opens his mouth to scream at him, raises a hand to struggle back out, back down,  _back to him_ , but Marshall catches his eyes and says  _stay there_  without a word.

His chest burns.

The platform rattles and shudders, Banshees are screaming up high. The control spire towering over the spaceport shatters, creaking and groaning and falling, falling, falling – down,  _down_. The mob surges and the guards trip over themselves trying to shove them back. The engines roar to life; the ramp hisses and starts to struggle closed. Emile claws at it, pounds at it, can’t stop it.

Marshall’s always beside him.

“Marshall!” Emile screams, straining to see. “ _Marshall!_ ”

_Stay there._

“Marshall!”

Through the fog and the choking haze he gets a brief glimpse. Marshall’s doubled over, covering his face with his sleeve and heaving for breath. He lifts his head for a second, just a second, just long enough to meet Emile’s eyes.

_Stay there_.

“ _Marshall!_ ”

The ship lifts, the ship rises, and Emile shrieks and seizes the door and tries to force it to stay open, tries to shove himself through the gap. It’s too late, he’s not strong enough, not strong enough. The ramp seals shut and he throws himself through anyone in his path and presses his face to the window.

“Marshall,” he chokes, beating at the glass, pleading, pleading. Always beside him. Always right next to him. “ _Marshall_ —”

Marshall’s a shadow. Marshall’s gone. The city’s an inferno, a pillar of flame. Emile’s heart stops.

Breathing feels like fire.

–

"Everyone off!”

The ramp hisses, unseals, and creaks open and the crowd shuffles out and down. Emile follows them numbly. His bag is clutched in his hands.

The space at his side is so full of people but so empty at the same time.

"This way!” the soldier shouts, waving. There’s a gun in his hands and gravel in his voice. Monsters of buildings rise high behind him, sprawling warehouses and barbed-wire fences that he knows aren’t to stop something from getting out but to keep anything from getting  _in_. Emile’s chest tightens and he reaches out until he remembers and yanks his hand back.

No Marshall. Not anymore.

The masses are slow, stumbling along like zombies. Emile lifts his chin and makes himself stand tall, makes himself stride.

Be brave.

They’re all filing through the doors of one of the warehouses. Emile ducks inside after them and makes a beeline for the closest unoccupied corner. People are curled up on cots, huddled in blankets the soldiers are passing out to them. He snatches one on his way by, slings it around his shoulders, and crawls into the crevice. It’s cold. It’s so cold.

"Where are your parents?”

Marshall’s  _don’t talk to strangers unless I’m with you_  hits him, once, before he pushes it away.

No Marshall. Not anymore.

“I don’t have any,” Emile sneers. The little girl tilts her head at him, brown skin and wide brown eyes and a mane of curly chestnut matted with soot. She kneels down in front of him and he presses himself even further back and clutches his bag and glares.

She stops. “Are you afraid?” she asks, and her voice shakes a little.

His chest burns. “No,” Emile growls. “I’m not scared. I never get scared.”

“Lots of people are scared.”

He scoffs. “Not me.”

Her eyes are wide and dark. “Me neither,” she says, straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin. “Me neither.”

She’s shivering. She doesn’t have a blanket. Emile looks at the others, pressed together in circles for warmth, and holds out his blanket and an arm. “You can stay here,” he says. It’s what Marshall would do. “It’s really cold.”

She hesitates and then crawls carefully to his side. He settles the blanket around them, pauses, and then winds his arms around her too. “It’s really cold,” he says again and she nods, nods, and doesn’t move.

The warehouse groans in the gusting wind, shuddering and moaning like there’s something outside, like something wants  _in_ , and Emile leans a little closer and squeezes a little tighter. “I’m not scared,” he whispers hoarsely. Be brave. Be brave. “I’m  _not scared_.”

“Me neither,” she says. The roof rattles and she stiffens and shakes and sucks in a breath that turns into a heave. “ _Me neither_.”

When the sun comes up, the sky bleeds red.

“What’s your name?” Emile asks, kicking his legs over the edge of the landing platform. They’re not supposed to be out here but either no one cares enough to tell them to go back inside or no one’s noticed they’re gone.

She makes a face. “Rosenda,” she says. “Ros.”

"Emile.”

She takes his hand and shakes it up and down and up and down until he giggles and shakes back. “Nice to meet you, Emi.”

“My brother called me that.” It hurts. Suddenly he can’t breathe. Emile blinks back the tears, blinks and blinks and glares. “He died.”

“I had a brother too,” Rosenda says. “I don’t know what happened to him.”

"Was he older than you?”

“He was a baby.”

“Oh.”

“I think he’s gone now. My parents, too.”

“The aliens?” Emile asks.

"No.” Her shoulders tighten, face twists. “No. The Innies.”

“Mine too.”

She looks at him for a long moment. “I hate them,” Rosenda whispers. “Is that bad?”

Emile shrugs and stares at his feet. “Marshall said not to hate people.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah.”

"Was he right?”

“He was always right,” Emile says but it doesn’t feel like it means anything. “He knew a lot of stuff.”

“Hey, you two! Get back in here!”

They scramble to their feet and scamper into the warehouse. Emile loses sight of her in the crowd, ducking and weaving to avoid the soldier’s wrath. “Ros?” he calls, when he’s clear, standing on his tiptoes and craning his neck. “Rosenda?”

She’s not in their corner, not outside, not along any of the walls or crammed in the center of the room with the others. Emile searches once, twice, three and four times, and then collapses in his crevice. She’s gone.

“Are you Emile?”

Marshall’s warning flickers in the back of his head, there for a flash. The man’s not overly tall but he holds himself in a way that says he’s dangerous. Emile juts his chin forward. “Who’s asking?” he challenges.

“My name is Jones.” He crouches down, rocking back on his heels. Emile drives a hand inside his bag and closes it around the pocket knife hidden there. “I’m here to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Do you know what happened on your home planet?”

“The aliens attacked,” Emile scoffs. “Everyone knows that.”

 Jones nods solemnly. “Was anyone with you?”

Emile narrows his eyes. “My brother.

“Is he here?”

“They killed him.”

Jones grimaces. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That must be hard.”

"He’s dead,” Emile says. It feels like a knife to the gut every time he says it. No Marshall. Not anymore. “Why do you care?”

Jones folds his hands in front of him. “I can’t bring him back,” he says, “but I can give you a chance to hurt the people that killed him. To hurt the Covenant. Do you want that?”

No Marshall. Not anymore.

His chest burns.

“Yeah,” Emile says. “Yeah, I do.”

—


End file.
